15% of US Companies Have No Policies in Place for BYOD, Study Finds

Cybercrime prevention solutions provider ThrearMetrix has released its 2012 State of Cybercrime study, a report based on the answers provided by the IT executives and business managers of financial and retail services companies from the United States.

The report shows that while 25% of employees from the retail and financial sectors use their personal devices for work-related tasks, 15% of companies haven’t implemented policies for the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) initiative.

Experts warn that the lack of proper security policies poses a great risk not only to the company, but to its customers as well.

“While BYOD often enables a more efficient and productive workplace, businesses cannot ignore the additional risk of unknown devices connecting to corporate networks,” said Andreas Baumhof, CTO of ThreatMetrix.

“As BYOD becomes commonplace across industries, a layered security approach, including device identification and malware protection is crucial to protect corporate and customer data.”

Most of the companies that allow their employees to use their personal devices for work allow them to access email, in 70% of cases, and websites, in 53% of cases. However, some of them also permit access to file servers (16%) and even financial records (13%).

In addition, the study shows that 31% of organizations allow their employees to utilize work devices for personal use. A worrying fact is that 25% of companies allow employees to download software without any approval.

Only half of organizations limit what their staff members can do on work computers.

“Retail and financial service organizations need preventative measures in place to protect both corporate and employee-owned devices from today’s highly sophisticated cybercrime threats,” Baumhof added.

“Ensuring that every device can be safely used in the workplace is a challenge for which few organizations are prepared. However, implementing robust BYOD policies and cybercrime prevention solutions can stop cybercriminals in their tracks and protect sensitive data.”